Chapter 139: Chapter 138: Joining the Cast with Sponsorship_1
Twenty minutes later.
The car stopped at Hongxiang Garden.
Despite its rather grand name, the place wasn’t any gated community and the land it occupied wasn’t a neatly arranged square block; it sat in an area resembling a diamond, bisected by a road running through its center.
"Xu Da, which building is the apartment that Yu Meili lent to Sun Manqing’s ex-wife in?"
Xu Dayuan glanced at the message on his phone and pointed towards the building furthest to the east as they walked over.
"The second building on the west side. To get to the garage we have to go through the underground parking. Let’s go up and check the place first."
Without any further ado, the group went upstairs. The old elevator reeked with a mixture of garbage, the smell of breakfast, and pet odors, groaning and juddering upwards as if on the verge of breaking down at any moment, until it finally shook and stopped on the eighth floor.
After getting out of the elevator, they saw a three-household layout on each floor. Xu Dayuan walked to Apartment 801 and gestured to Sun Manqing’s ex-wife, Chai Ruhua, who clearly did not want to be there, but she still used her keys to open the door.
Mr. Zhao was the first to rush over, taking fingerprints from the door before peering inside and then looking towards Xu Da.
"Shall I go in now?"
Xu Dayuan gave him a bland look. Seeing the actions of the police, Chai Ruhua immediately started shouting from behind.
"You police are really funny, fussing around here instead of investigating my husband’s cause of death. Did that vixen send you? I suppose money talks, eh?"
Mr. Zeng grabbed Chai Ruhua’s arm, glaring at her with a warning expression.
"First, Sun Manqing is your ex-husband, not your current husband; Second, this apartment belongs to Yu Meili, not to your ex-husband; Third, if you’re not satisfied with our law enforcement, you can file a complaint, but your comments just now have been recorded on our law enforcement recorder. You can’t just say anything you like in front of the police, got it?"
After this barrage, Chai Ruhua had no response, clearly scared. Mr. Zhao didn’t take long inside before he came out, holding an evidence bag and looking at Zhou Ning.
"As Yu Meili mentioned, I found the car keys in the drawer of the coffee table. I lifted several fingerprints from them, which we can analyze back at the lab."
Zhou Ning nodded, turned his gaze to Chai Ruhua, who was no longer as composed, her eyes shifting around, clearly hiding something.
Xu Dayuan waved his hand at Zhou Ning.
"Come on, you come in with me for a look."
The two entered the room. It was a three-bedroom apartment, not very spacious in the living room due to it being on a multi-story building. The place was incredibly messy. Zhou Ning did a quick survey and determined that the first room on the south side was likely lived in by an elderly person, as the strong smell of old age lingered, and on the table was an ashtray, along with a mineral water bottle which, when opened, Zhou Ning sniffed and found was filled with alcohol.
Several medical record envelopes lay on a small table. Zhou Ning took them out and looked through them: regular check-up items including X-ray, ultrasound, and CT scans were listed. After reviewing the medical records booklet, he saw no particular notes, just a mild case of bronchitis. To think someone came to Qindao for treatment for this seemed far-fetched.
Zhou Ning snapped photos of the medical records and then moved to the master bedroom, presumably Chai Ruhua’s. The closet was full of clothes, including a couple of high-end garments that looked a size or two too small for her.
Going to the north-side room, Zhou Ning paused, surprised. The walls were adorned with huge promotional posters, with several featuring dark, revealing images of women, which Zhou Ning didn’t recognize the actresses of. They wore dark eye makeup and rings shaped like skulls; their bodies were almost shining, oiled. Several Pirates of the Caribbean movie stills were also present.
The room’s desk had a picture of Sun Yannian, along with several car models. Zhou Ning picked them up for a closer look and then snapped photos to search—they were all limited edition. These weren’t ordinary models; they were expensive collectibles.
The father had gone bankrupt, the mother had chosen to divorce, and even ran off with some money.
Now that she discovered the father had money again, she brought him over to reunite, disregarding the child’s schooling. Zhou Ning truly couldn’t understand such an approach. But for a child in this kind of family, you only had to look at what he pursued to know—it had nothing to do with studying at all.
Zhou Ning searched but found no diaries or the like; however, he found several prophylactics of different brands in a backpack, an unexpected find—quite precocious for a fifteen-year-old!
Walking back to the living room, Zhou Ning showed the prophylactics to Xu Dayuan, who then gave a thumbs-up towards the doorway. Zhou Ning shook his head.
"Found in Sun Yannian’s backpack, various brands and flavors!"
Xu Dayuan paused, then let out a breath.
"Any other findings?"
Zhou Ning shook his head.
"Nothing else for now. Mr. Chai has minor bronchitis; he had many unnecessary tests without any major issues. Chai Ruhua has gained quite a bit of weight from what I see. Sun Yannian is a fan of celebrities, likes Pirates of the Caribbean and a variety of dark Western styles. He has lots of expensive car model collectibles, and his precocious personal life seems to be quite active!"
Xu Dayuan nodded his head and waved at Zhou Ning.
"Let’s head to the garage."
As they spoke, the two of them left the room, and at that moment, Chai Ruhua came over.
"If my family loses something, I look for you guys!"
Zhou Ning raised a bag and shook it in front of Chai Ruhua’s face.
"The things we found in your son’s backpack, we need to take them away for fingerprinting. Other items we’ll just photograph, including your father’s medical records, and the arrangements in your home. Go check them now."
Mr. Zeng gave Chai Ruhua a push.
"Go take a look inside, once you confirm, we can leave."
Chai Ruhua shook his head.
"I know you were sent by those with the surname Ding. With Sun Manqing dead, she would be happy for something to happen to my whole family, that vixen is no good."
Xu Dayuan waved his hand and stared into Chai Ruhua’s eyes.
"Before we came here, we had already said we are from the criminal police team. Don’t bother with these useless talks, and don’t keep calling her a vixen. As far as I’m aware, when your ex-husband lost his family’s fortune and racked up external debts, you managed a divorce and then ran off with the money—that was the salary he left for all his employees.
"While the Yu Meili family indeed doesn’t lack money, they’re not there to support you guys just like that. The premise of everything is, you have some connection with Sun Manqing. I’m not a judge, I don’t care about these trivial matters, so during our investigation, if you have nothing to say, keep your mouth shut. Mr. Zeng, take her back to continue gathering information."
Chai Ruhua wasn’t happy, but neither did she dare to shout, as Xu Dayuan looked menacing.
"We’ve cooperated with everything that was needed, why can’t we go home?"
Mr. Zeng grasped Chai Ruhua’s arm, and though it didn’t look forceful, the strength was more than Chai Ruhua could resist.
"Let’s go, sister. Clarify your timeline. I’ve said this before, I need to know about the surveillance footage that can prove your whereabouts or if you’ve passed by, like in supermarkets, or at certain intersections. You tell us, we go find it, and if it proves that you weren’t at the crime scene during the time of the incident, you can leave. No need for me to explain further, right?"
Following Mr. Zeng’s explanation, the two of them had already left via the staircase. Mr. Zhao breathed a sigh of relief and blinked at Xu Dayuan and Zhou Ning.
"This wife is not easy to deal with; leaving her would definitely add a couple more years to one’s life. Are we going to the garage now?"
Xu Dayuan nodded his head.
"Let’s go, to the underground garage. Oh, did you get the fingerprints of their family of three?"
"Yeah, got them. I had Mr. Qu enter them into the system. Later I’ll send the ones we’ve collected here to Mr. Qu for comparison."
"You’re ruthless, treating the forensics lab like your Unit Two’s special techniques division?"
Mr. Zhao grinned, tilting his chin up at Zhou Ning.
"It’s because our comrade Zhou Xiaozhou brought capital into the group, it’s a different case, you just go ahead and use it."
Zhou Ning shot him a look, and the three boarded the elevator to go down. This time they went directly to the minus first floor. The entire underground garage was pitch-dark. Mr. Zhao coughed twice, and several distant, ghostly sensor-controlled lights came on. Zhou Ning lifted his phone to turn on the flashlight, finding the underground garage packed with cars.
"The community is not closed off, it tends to be like this. Even though there are various facilities, it gets exploited too much by outsiders."
"Less talking, hurry up and find out where the garage is."
Looking at the garage information on Xu Dayuan’s phone, which displayed only the number 8134, Mr. Zhao looked around and pointed towards one edge:
"Follow me, this way is even-numbered."
With that, he walked ahead alone. Soon, with his exclamation, his phone also lit up a rolling shutter door, and indeed, below it was a combination lock, the kind probably only a woman would choose to use.
Mr. Zhao squatted down, rubbing his gloves together before manipulating the combination. The lock snapped open, and Xu Dayuan was slightly stunned.
"Hold on, kid. I didn’t tell you the combination, so how did you open the lock?"
